Volkswagen Lunar Module Advert
20 Jul
As you will have noticed it is the 40th anniversary of the moon landings this month. Seeing footage of the takeoff what struck me was the cameras people were using to photograph it. It seems strange that we were able to fly people to the moon and back before the invention of the humble digital camera. We were able to see live footage of the astronauts bouncing around on the moon’s surface before the invention of the mobile phone.
What is also surprising is that the Volkswagen Beetle was 31 years old at the time of the moon landings. To put that in context the Ford Escort was in production for 30 years in total, the original Beetle was built until 2003.
Volkswagen have always had a reputation for creating (or, I suppose, commissioning) great adverts. Car adverts tend to range from the offensive to the boring to the bafflingly rubbish. They can rarely be called subtle although I think the Volkswagen one below is. The tag line is ‘it’s ugly but it gets you there’. Some would argue that some of the VW vans for sale are less attractive than the Beetle but either way you get the idea.
I have a copy of the “slick” that was “pulled” for this ad to run in newspapers across the country the day after the Moon walk. My dad was in newspaper advertising and framed the full page ad slick. Little did he know…….
i know we think of ourself as creative writers but some people dont. i also did a chart for this topic and i am sure you guys are going to love this